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In last days on job, Colorado's veteran snow survey chief finds snowpack significantly below average

Mike Gillespie, right,
snow survey supervisor
for the Natural Resources
Conservation Service in
Colorado, reads the
weight of the snow inside
the collection tube held
by Mike Ardison on
Thursday near Berthoud
Pass. The weight helps
calculate how much
water is in the snow.
Gillespie retires at the
end of today after 31 years
of doing snow surveys. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Gillespie, the snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado, has visited this spot along U.S. 40 just below the Berthoud Pass summit at the same time each year for 28 years to measure the snowpack. In his first year, when snow piled up twice as much as normal, it took a heroic effort just to climb the 200 yards to the measurement site.

Thursday, it took about five minutes.

The first manual snow sampling of the season Thursday confirmed what automated sensors have been suggesting for weeks: The water available in Colorado's snowpack is significantly below average.

Statewide, snowpack is 73 percent of average. That ranks as the fourth-driest measurement in the past 30 years, according to the conservation service. No river basin in Colorado is above average.

No year in the past three decades that has started this far below average has recovered to average snowpack by the start of spring, Gillespie said.

"It's pretty evident that this is one of the drier years," Gillespie said. "It's not looking like a good start at all to the year."

Gillespie, who started doing snow surveys in Wyoming 31 years ago, has the experience to know. But Thursday was the last survey he will do. As of the end of today, Gillespie is retired.

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That is a substantial loss of institutional knowledge in the obscure but important world of Colorado snowpack analysis. Gillespie's snowpack measurements are closely watched by Colorado water managers, who use them to determine how much water will be available in the spring and summer.

Gillespie said his analyses can predict the amount of water in the spring runoff within about 10 percent.

Every year, Gillespie has overseen an effort to manually measure snowpack at more than 100 high-altitude "snow courses" across the state. He also has been instrumental in expanding the state's use of automated snowpack sensors, which now number about 110 and provide daily snowpack updates.

"That has not been glitch-free," said Klaus Wolter, a climatologist at the University of Colorado, who praised Gillespie's commitment to providing an accurate, comprehensive snowpack picture. "It has been important to maintain those snow courses."

Indeed, there is a certain vintage flair to Gillespie's method. The tools he uses are simple: a specially marked measuring tube and a basic scale. Measurements are written down by hand.

It is understated science, much like the understated scientist who performs it.

Nolan Doesken, the state climatologist, said Gillespie brought a sense of competence to the high stakes of water-supply prediction and an aura of calmness to often panicky meetings about drought or flooding.

"He was just always steady and reliable," Doesken said. "You could always count on the data."

On Thursday, Gillespie's measurements on Berthoud Pass matched what the sensors had been saying.

Snow depths measured in the teens and 20s of inches, with an average water content of 6.3 inches. That is barely more than half as much as the 10.5 inches of water content in the snow at the same spot at the same time last year. Sapling trees and fallen logs poked above the snow line on the course.

Gillespie wore skinny cross-country skis with grippy climbing skins to navigate the snow course, a set-up that at times created awkward steps and turns in the ungroomed snow and tight forest.

His two younger colleagues nimbly negotiated the course in snowshoes.

But when the survey was done, the veteran wisdom of those skis became apparent.

Gillespie peeled off his climbing skins and grabbed his poles. With a wrist flick, he pushed off and glided elegantly, blissfully down the hill.

Lockheed says object part of 'sensor technology' testing that ended ThursdayWhat the heck is that thing? It's fair to assume that question was on the minds of many people who traveled along Colo. 128 south of Boulder this week if they happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, silver projectile perched alongside the highway and pointed north toward town.

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